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Striding Out Of Babel: Originalism, Its Critics, And The Promise Of Our American Constitution, André Leduc

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article pursues a therapeutic approach to end the debate over constitutional originalism. For almost fifty years that debate has wrestled with the question whether constitutional interpretations and decisions should look to the original intentions, expectations, and understandings with respect to the constitutional text, and if not, what. Building on a series of prior articles exploring the jurisprudential foundations of the debate, this Article characterizes the debate over originalism as pathological. The Article begins by describing what a constitutional therapy is.

The debate about originalism has been and remains sterile and unproductive, and the lack of progress argues powerfully for …